17 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

I may expand on this later, but the reality is that my solution is probably no better than anyone else's, but.. I only hope the devs rebalance SHS so stock mechs don't suck so badly (they suffer from a whole other heap of other issues, none of which can be directly addressable).

The issue(s):

The primary issue with SHS and stock mechs is that the current system favors DHS favorably.

The DHS upgrade itself means that for a SHS to even "keep competitive", you will need 20 SHS installed.. just to keep up! This means you have to consume 10 tons and 10 slots of SHS. It literally doesn't make sense! So, it'll never be competitive with DHS. That's fine. However, stock mechs are inherently gimped for this very reason alone.

The other issue is that engines that are lower rated than 250 are at a hinderence when it comes to heat sink efficiency... it affects lighter mechs more, but it also affects heavier mechs that use smaller engines (see Cataphract-4X).


Proposal #1:
SHS in the internal engine should dissipate .14 heat/second (similar to current DHS). This way, it will take 6 tons and 6 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. That's a lot more reasonable for heavier mechs. Alternatively, it could be .15 heat/sec, which will take 5 tons and 5 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. Notably, this can fill up slots usually not consumed by DHS, like the head and legs. This is a perfectly simple upgrade that can immediately benefit all stock mechs.

Proposal #2 (for both SHS and DHS):
For those taking a stock engine that is currently < 250, filling up the required 10 HS is suboptimal. There should be a special upgrade specifically to address this. My current idea is restricted to STD engines at the moment (because of tonnage concerns/savings for XL). It should be an available option BEFORE buying a mech. For perhaps 500k to 750k of C-bills, you would be offered to have a special "engine upgrade" to allow external heatsinks to be added to a mech. Adding external SHS or DHS to an engine smaller than 250 will allow it to behave like an engine HS. This doesn't affect SHS much (unless you add in my suggestion from Proposal #1, which would help), but it would dramatically improve DHS usefulness.

This upgrade will allow the added protection the engine provides (275 or greater engines that can have heatsinks added to the engines behave differently, and can be shot off) AND allow for the aspects of proposal #1 to be effective for stock mechs.

The idea is that the trial mechs already have this upgrade implemented, so that heat dissipation of the mech improves the overall mech design dramatically. The basic idea is to semi-revert to a basic MW2/MW3 heat sink foundation, where you have the 10 basic HS installed. This is the same idea... as MWO's single heat sink distribution for <250 engines is probably not canon/TT. Understandably SHS in MWO can be used as crit protection, but let's be honest... what's the point of protecting a medium laser with a SHS if you overheat so often?

The "upgrade", will convert the "STD engine" to a psuedo-XL engine, which could be used to add some crits to both torso for balance. The crits issue would affect smaller engines in bigger mechs more (crits are a premium after all).

With those two proposals, they address two key issues with the current implementation of SHS... which is not being competitive for stock mechs, and not necessarily a "fair" trade for smaller engines (for DHS).

Edited by Deathlike, 22 March 2013 - 03:01 PM.

[Heeden]

Deathlike, on 22 March 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

Proposal #1:
SHS in the internal engine should dissipate .14 heat/second (similar to current DHS). This way, it will take 6 tons and 6 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. That's a lot more reasonable for heavier mechs. Alternatively, it could be .15 heat/sec, which will take 5 tons and 5 slots of SHS to keep up with the straight DHS upgrade. Notably, this can fill up slots usually not consumed by DHS, like the head and legs. This is a perfectly simple upgrade that can immediately benefit all stock mechs.

I suggested something similar a while ago and think the advantages are two-fold. Not only does it give a boost to trial mechs which have SHS as standard, it also makes DHS potentially a "sidegrade", so some builds may actually prefer singles.

[Dorynn]

I'm not surprised by this at all. Unfortunately, you're looking at a very old problem. a VERY old problem.

DHS was actually something of a polarizing element in TT as well. In TT they were even more powerful: TWICE the cooling power for the same weight at 3 times the size. The idea was for the size difference to balance out the heat difference (since energy weapons are VERY space efficient).

There are still internet arguments about DHS in TT, but the consensus seems to be that they solve more problems than they create. As is, I am extremely annoyed at having to drop an additional 1.5m cbills for every new mech I buy, but I can't think of any good way to solve it.

[Deathlike]

Heeden, on 22 March 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

I suggested something similar a while ago and think the advantages are two-fold. Not only does it give a boost to trial mechs which have SHS as standard, it also makes DHS potentially a "sidegrade", so some builds may actually prefer singles.

Sure. I don't think it is viable to have them at the same levels @ DHS, since that would overall change the dynamics greatly with hexa-PPC stalkers... I think.

Right now, they are not even good for filler space. So any mention of the additional benefits to SHS (like them cooling more efficiently in water, based on amount of exposure to the water), is rather moot.

[Urza Mechwalker]

SHS are not even supposed to be USEFUl in BT Lore. Only poor loossers use SHS in BT lore. There should be No BALANCE AT ALL among those 2!!!! The SHS can and should b useful only on a very limited number of builds where criticals end much faster than tons. Like when we eventually get a 100 ton ballistic mech.

[IrrelevantFish]

Urza Mechwalker, on 23 March 2013 - 03:08 AM, said:

SHS are not even supposed to be USEFUl in BT Lore. Only poor loossers use SHS in BT lore. There should be No BALANCE AT ALL among those 2!!!!

That's assuming that keeping in line with canon is optimal in this situation, and I don't think that's a good assumption in this case. The only game-play effect of the current SHS/DHS system is to put stock loadouts and the noobs that run them at a huge disadvantage, which will only serve to drive new players away and further limit MWO's already-limited audience.

However, I think the OP's system is needlessly complex, doesn't really solve either of the problems mentioned, and I believe is operating off faulty numbers. (In MWO, DHS dissipates 1.14 heat, not 2.0 as they do in TT.)

First, boosting in-engine dissipation with SHS wouldn't really make it a sidegrade so much as it would simply reduce its suckage, and it would make DHS effectively useless for low-heat loadouts (ie, the majority of light and ballistic-heavy mechs).

My preferred solution is to give SHS and DHS identical per-ton heat capacities. (Sorry, but I can't remember who to attribute this stroke of brilliance to.) This would mean that switching to DHS would reduce your maximum heat capacity, as well as your available crits, which would limit energy-weapon boating and give SHS a reason to exist.

As far as the small-engine penalty, why not simply remove the 10-heatsink minimum? Making standard engines upgradeable would only benefit small-engine heavies like the CTF-4X, because XL engines are effectively mandatory for light mechs, and most loadouts on sub-250 mechs don't really need more than eight or nine heatsinks.

[qki]

You people are ignorant as hell.

First - 10 DHS in MWO is the equivalent of 14, not 20 SHS, so your assumption is wrong from the start.

Second - you seem to have missed the part, where any submerged heatsinks have double efficiency, effectively granting every 'mech with 4 SHS in the legs an additional 4 heatsinks, as long as you are standing in water. The same is not possible with DHS, since their 3-slot requirement precludes them from being installed in the legs.

The watercooling is currently only possible on forest colony, and river city (not sure if what passes for water on caustic counts), but there.

Also - zombie 'mechs tend to pad locations with SHS, and when using several bulky weapons, 24 SHS, despite taking up another 7 tons compared to their 17 DHS equivalent, actually take up less space.

[Deathlike]

qki, on 23 March 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

You people are ignorant as hell.

First - 10 DHS in MWO is the equivalent of 14, not 20 SHS, so your assumption is wrong from the start.

All DHS in the engine has "natural DHS dissipation rate" of that is double SHS. If we were talking about the external DHS, you would be correct, but it's not the case.

Reference (from the horse's mouth):
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1474814

Quote

Second - you seem to have missed the part, where any submerged heatsinks have double efficiency, effectively granting every 'mech with 4 SHS in the legs an additional 4 heatsinks, as long as you are standing in water. The same is not possible with DHS, since their 3-slot requirement precludes them from being installed in the legs.

The watercooling is currently only possible on forest colony, and river city (not sure if what passes for water on caustic counts), but there.

It's proportional to the depth of the water and legs. It's not strictly double.

Reference:
http://mwomercs.com/...0089-breakdown/

Quote

Also - zombie 'mechs tend to pad locations with SHS, and when using several bulky weapons, 24 SHS, despite taking up another 7 tons compared to their 17 DHS equivalent, actually take up less space.

Wait. Are you actually using SHS to come up with those #s? I sincerely hope you read up.

Edited by Deathlike, 23 March 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

It is an impossible mission if you try to satisfy too many constraints. For example, if you want stock configurations tow ork (not that they do now, they don't, but if you wanted), you can't nerf doubles in anyway. You can buff SHS, but you would just turn SHS stock mechs into ineffecient designs that have more heat sinks than you will ever need.

A way to balance DHS vs SHS is to create a benchmark scenario that fits a typical combat engagements. Let's say you know that most direct, continued fire engagemened lasts between 10-20 seconds. THen either the combat breaks off or someone dies.

So, you now balance SHS vs DHS so that a mech that has a certain heat production rate linked with the weight investment for the SHS and DHS will last for about 15 seconds. Your variation points would be:
- One Type of Heat Sink woul grant a higher heat capacity and a lower dissipation. This type of sink would enable more powerful alpha strikes. But the low dissipation means that after the 10 second period, he's at disadvantage, because he will not return to low heat levels as quickly.
- One type of Heat Sink would grant a lower heat capacity but a higher dissipation. This type of sink would enable better sustained DPS, possibly requiring chain firing but also enabling sustained fire for times beyond the 15 second mark.

Now you might have a semblance of balance in actual gameplay. But you will probably not have something that would warrant the term "double" heat sink... And DHS might not be an "upgrade", just a "modification". And probably none of the stock configurations nor any current player configurations would work well under this system. (Some might, most won't.)

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 23 March 2013 - 09:56 AM.

[CloaknDagger]

You are trying to balance an M1 Garand with a G3.

It's not going to happen. One of them is just better.

[MustrumRidcully]

Let's try this: http://mwomercs.com/...ine-heat-sinks/

It's not perfect, but we can be happy if this game balance and heat mechanics ever even move in a positive direction.

[Sybreed]

CloaknDagger, on 23 March 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

You are trying to balance an M1 Garand with a G3.

It's not going to happen. One of them is just better.

this is a video game, not real life.

From a design point of view, having SHS in the game in their current form makes no sense at all. They're placeholders until you can get enough C-Bills for DHS and let's face it, most people wait that they can afford DHS before they use/buy a mech.

[Hotthedd]

DHS is an UPGRADE from SHS. The problem is that too many people want them to be a SIDEGRADE.

[Khobai]

The way I see it PGI has two options:

1) rebalance heat system, make single heatsinks and trial mechs viable

2) remove single heatsinks entirely, revamp all trial mechs to use DHS

[Zyllos]

Khobai, on 24 March 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

The way I see it PGI has two options:

1) rebalance heat system, make single heatsinks and trial mechs viable

2) remove single heatsinks entirely, revamp all trial mechs to use DHS

I personally think #2 is a mistake.

And the way I see it, #1 could only happen if you match heat with RoF. But when that happens, DHS will have no heat issues whatso ever. So this is going to be extremely hard to balance correctly...

If you go on the premises of that SHS should be replaced with DHS, then the game is balanced, based on that fact. But it still leaves the heat not having a huge factor, at least for those builds that run a bit less weaponry so that they can just constantly fire.

Running with that, maybe the balancing factor is that you can use more weapons with DHS and not overly introduce a lot of heat into your mech, thus giving yourself more firepower.

If that happens, you would have to introduce heat penalties like how they are done on TT:

17% = -10% top kph and acceleration
27% = -10% torso/arm movement speed
33% = -20% top kph and acceleration
43% = -20% torso/arm movement speed
50% = -30% top kph and acceleration
57% = -30% torso/arm movement speed
60% = Auto shutdown (overridable)
63% = Random 1.0 damage to internals every 1.0s (1 random location/5% for 3x crit, 15% for 2x crit, 45% for crit)
67% = -40% top kph and acceleration
77% = Random 1.0 damage to internals every 1.0s (2 random locations/5% for 3x crit, 15% for 2x crit, 45% for crit)
80% = -40% torso/arm movement speed
83% = -50% top kph and acceleration
93% = Random 1.0 damage to internals every 1.0s (3 random locations/5% for 3x crit, 15% for 2x crit, 45% for crit)
100% = Auto shutdown (non-overridable)

But if you implement the above heat scale penalties, your going to have to change how heat is introduced into a mech. One suggestion is to introduce heat over the cooldown of a weapon instead of when the weapon is on. Thus, a PPC would produce 2.67 heat per second for 3.0s. So 13.3 DHS or 26.7 SHS would make the PPC never introduce heat into a mech.

Looking at the AWS-8Q, with 28 SHS and 3x PPCs, if you alpha striked them, you would be producing 8.0 (PPCs) - 2.8 (heatsinks) = 5.2 heat per second for 3.0s. Or, you would hit 52.0% after 3.0s, taking a lot of penalties. So, you would have to fire a PPC once every 3.0s to not introduce heat into the mech. But doing that, your third PPC is worthless if your single firing them. So firing two PPCs then waiting 3.0s and firing a single PPC would produce 5.33 - 2.8 = 2.53 heat per second for 3.0s. This gives 25.3%, which is still some penalties when an AWS-8Q should not be producing much heat on the mech when utilizing the PPCs.

After all that explination, it all boils back down to RoF is being a bit too high to balance everything else related with heat.

[Deathlike]

With respect to rate of fire... I think PGI intended it that way, for a faster pace game... and it shows. PPCs are a viable weapon (at least for me), unlike many of the previous MW (although, the one in MW3 was great, except not quite usable in netplay due to lag shooting)

The issue really becomes the heat generation and cooldown of the weapons themselves...

The thing is that the heat capacity of the game increased a bit to "address" these issues, but that indirectly causes all sorts of problems.. like the hex-PPC stalker (not that it is really viable, but it allows it to function as an unintended consequence).

Lowering heat capacity would address a few of these issues, but they have yet to get the heat scale working properly for trial mechs...

[Hotthedd]

Heat penalties would be perfect, but this is a developer that seems more interested in making the game EASIER (3PV, etc.) than BETTER.

[StalaggtIKE]

I feel it would be best to keep SHS at a standard 1.0, to maintain normality. Instead a simple fix would be to change the DHS; have internal engine heatsinks dissipate at a 1.7 level instead of 2.0 and all additional external heatsinks to dissipate at 2.0 level. It's a simple swapping around of the system we currently have in place. This circumvent the current "free" engine 2.0 DHS that most of us take for granted. I didn't want to go the route of deliberately "nerfing" DHS as they are a payed for upgrade. Instead I wanted to ensure that people invest in the heatsinks if they upgrade, by encouraging more external heatsinks. Why? Because DHS takes up 3 critical slots. Relying on engine DHS circumvent this con, plus it dissipated at a 2.0 rate. For example a XL300 engine comes with 10 "free" 2.0 DHS. I do not have to to take up any additional crit slots from the DHS upgrade, so in essence getting them without the drawback. At this point there is no reason not to go for the DHS upgrade. Eliminating this "workaround" ensures that pilots must make a choice between 1 crit slot, 1.0 heat dissipation or 3 crit slots, 2.0 heat dissipation. This makes them both viable solutions.

Follow the link below for further details which include some number crunching that yeilded some interesting results.

Link: DHS VS SHS: A POSSIBLE FIX [SUGGESTION]

This is what I got messing around in the mechlab:

Edit: I used mwo.smurfy-net to get my values. Great site if you haven't used it before.